Murder of Hannah Foster

Hannah Claire Foster was a 17-year-old A-level student from Southampton, England, who was preparing to study medicine at university. On the evening of 14 March 2003, she spent time with a friend in the Portswood area of the city. Shortly before 11 p.m., her friend took a bus home while Hannah set out to walk the short remaining distance to her family's house alone. She did not arrive.

As she walked, Hannah was abducted by Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, a sandwich delivery driver who had been drinking nearby and was travelling in a company van. While being driven away, Hannah managed to dial 999 without her captor's knowledge, hoping the call handler would overhear that she was in danger. Because no one spoke directly to the operator and the audio was unclear, the call was initially treated as a possible misdial. Investigators later enhanced the recording and established that she had been in a vehicle driven by a man with a South Asian accent.

When Hannah failed to return home, her family alerted police the following morning. Officers traced the movements of her mobile phone, which, along with her bag, was recovered from a recycling site in Portsmouth. On 16 March 2003, her body was found in undergrowth on Allington Lane in West End, on the edge of Southampton. A post-mortem examination concluded that she had been beaten, raped and strangled.

Attention turned to Kohli after a colleague at his employer identified him as a possible suspect: he had taken a van home that night, had an injury to his face, and had not completed his next shift. Blood and semen recovered from the van were later linked to him through DNA analysis. By the time he was identified as the prime suspect, Kohli had already left the United Kingdom, flying from Heathrow to India on 18 March 2003.

Kohli spent roughly sixteen months evading capture, adopting a new identity and working under an alias in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Hannah's parents travelled to India in July 2004 to appeal publicly for information, and their campaign drew extensive attention in the Indian press. On 15 July 2004 Kohli was arrested while attempting to board a bus toward Nepal.

After a prolonged legal process, Kohli was extradited to the United Kingdom in July 2007, reported as the first Indian citizen to be extradited to Britain. He was charged on his arrival and pleaded not guilty at Winchester Crown Court in December 2007. At trial he offered shifting accounts, at one point claiming others were responsible, but forensic evidence tied him directly to the crime.

On 25 November 2008, Kohli was convicted of kidnap, rape and murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 24 years, reduced by two years to reflect time already spent in custody on remand. The case is recorded as solved, and Hannah's family later established a memorial in her name.